Rainy Days But Bright Smiles

Wow, I really cannot believe that another week has gone by. I feel like it was just yesterday that I had my computer out and was writing my blog. And here I am, an entire week later. Sometimes, it feels like every hour of the clock lasts an eternity, and other times I feel like the time I have left here is sliding away like the giant gallops of brownie batter that I spooned into the pan this afternoon.

So, some fun adventures this week. First of all, I’m sure you are all dying to know how my history-geography practice bac went, since I have been stressing about it for weeks now. Well, it was horrific. I literally spent the first hour looking at the 3 different exercises and going “Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, I know nothing, I have nothing to write about.” But, after an hour on the verge of tears, I sort of found a random train of thought and started writing. By the time the 4 hours were completed, I had written four pages about the different productive spaces of france and exploitation vs. preservation, 2.5 pages analyzing a document about the organization of the concentration camp system during world war 2, and completed a map of France about the networks and dynamics of metropolitan France(needless to say, I fudged my way through this one, especially when it came to marking the principal freeways all over France.) So yeah, it was very difficult and I will most likely not pass, but I do know that I really did do my best.

Now for the more structured stories from the week. Remember a few weeks ago when I talked about how Sunday lunch was a big deal and was full family time? How Sunday lunch meant a multiple course meal eaten in the dining room? Well, it is so true in my current host family. This Sunday, we had raclette, which may well be my new favorite food. It is so great. I have some photos, but basically, we melt slices of cheese and then pour them over the potatoes and ham and it is just so wonderfully satisfying. And it was even better on Sunday because it was cold and rainy outside and we were all inside around the table enjoying our family meal.

The Raclette machine, plus the potatoes, which we keep on top to keep warm. The ham, salami, and sausage that we eat with the warm raclette is served cold.

Sunday afternoon was a handball match and I finally got the chance to take a few pictures. I got to play for almost half of the game, and once again, I almost scored. I got a breakaway and as I was jumping to shoot, the defender shoved me, so my team got a penalty, and I ended up with a nicely bruised knee. In general, I don’t think my offensive play has gotten much better, but I think I’m improving on defense.

A long awaited handball picture. We are the purple team(but don't bother looking for me, I'm not in the picture.) We are on defense her. The blue zone is the goalkeeper-only zone. The blue team tries to pass the ball around to find an opening so that they can get close enough to shoot. We defend as a curtain and slide to try not to let them get through and to make them shoot from farther away. It's like basketball in that you can dribble and take 3 steps. What isn't like basketball is that once the girl in front of you has the ball, you bear hug her/ pin her arms to her sides to stop her from shooting.

In SVT, we have moved onto genetics, and we started out with mitosis. We had a graded “lab”(more like an activity) where we used microscopes to look at slides of cells in mitosis and we had to draw the different stages and then do a simplified diagram of the chromosomes during the process. Having studied a little bit of mitosis in 7th grade, I had a leg up on my French classmates, and it was fun to be able to answer their questions and help my neighbors throughout the activity.

In English class, we have moved on to studying the segregation, Jim Crow laws, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the United States. I’m a bit disappointed, actually. I liked it when we were doing unites about Ireland and Great Britain because I learned some cultural things that I didn’t know before. In doing the United States, we will just be talking about things that I studied in 3rd grade, 5th grade, and 8th grade during United States History.

Thursday night we made Croque-Monsieurs(the fancy name for grilled ham and cheese sandwiches.) Except that we made them in the oven, which was cool. We used my current favorite kind of cheese(besides raclette) which is called Comté, plus really good ham. 

Well, I guess that’s it. This might be a good time to explain the title of this post. The part about the rain is pretty self-explanatory (ie: it rained a lot this week.) The second part is more interesting. I smiled so much this week and in general, I was very happy. I got a funny look from my math teacher today because I was laughing and had a huge smile on my face during his lecture. It wasn’t because I was jumping for joy about the probabilities. It was more about the fact that I had just explained to my friends in front of me how I always think the symbol "sigma" look like a girl with a ponytail flying in the wind while riding a bicycle. I drew a picture on my paper and we were all laughing about it. I manage to make jokes in class and talk to my neighbors. I still find it hard to multitask in French so I tend to fall behind on taking the dictated notes when I’m talking to my neighbors, but that’s ok. And then, I’m also very excited about 2 things. #1: Nicole is coming this weekend to spend the night and we have some great plans, like wandering around downtown(the joys of living a 2 minute walk from downtown) plus going out to lunch and working on our scrapbooks.  And #2: We are just one week away from my 2 week long February break and I have some amazing plans. My host family and I are going skiing for a full week in the French Alps. We also have plans to go to Paris and Bruxelles for a day each. It is going to be so incredible.

So, that’s the update. For all of my friends at Rio who are now on vacation, have a good week off.
 
And here are a few pictures to finish off the post.

Last weekend's brownies, complete with hazelnuts and caramels. Today's brownies are peppermint bark brownies.

Isn't it nice to come home and find a basket of croissants waiting?